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Month: August 2016

The following is a reblog from a fellow WordPress writer. I am Pro-Choice, which is not, the same as Pro-Abortion. I believe it is a woman’s right to make this decision. To terminate a pregnancy or to carry to full term or to raise a child are each valid, private and critical decisions. I believe every single woman can be trusted to make these decisions just as I expect I would be trusted to be the decision maker for my person. I believe Pro-Life supporters can and should be able to make the choice they feel is best , too and this is the difference: Imagine if the law required Pro-Life women to have abortions.

YES. I will fight to keep it legal for any woman who is Pro-Life to be able to choose for herself to continue her pregnancy. – Ret

I’m about as pro-choice as it’s possible to be. I’m unflinchingly pro-choice, even. There are no ifs, ands, or buts in my approach to abortion, no caveats, no disclaimers. I am completely opposed to “late-term” abortion bans, TRAP laws, and any other restrictions on a person’s ability to conduct their own medical affairs. I believe…

Why can’t we hold out our heads like we do our hands, let our minds reach out, caress all the fears into a deep slumber, tenderly wrap the injured plans and broken promises in bandages, a soft kiss on top and all better…

The poker game is over.

The dealer, cuts, holds the halves, taps the stray bottoms to the table, once twice, thrice, bends the unwilling, thumb inserted just so, releasing the tension on the halves, letting them feather together, layering a card from the left, from the right, from the left from the right into one, once again.

Your left is under me, over, me, piled on top of me.

I am searching for trump, watching for the bower, short one for a royal flush.

The dealer hasn’t been kind. There’s no Ace in the blind. The goddamn Joker has been laid. Again.

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She prefers to play partners. She holds the cards. She calls the suit. She hates the game.

Like this:

There’s a reason we can’t look away when we are looking for answers. We seek signs where none exist. We seek direction from those who were once lost. There’s always someone who has it better, and worse.

Desiderata.

“Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.

And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Like this:

Theology is often viewed as abstract and removed from the problems of the real world. Yet many of the problems of the real world are caused by bad theologies. If bad theologies shape the world, might the same not be true of good theologies? Opposition to a woman’s right to choose birth control and abortion […]

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Trust me with parts of you others do not even know exist I will tender you in cosset and spin ugliness above your head wrap you against void and beneath terror, stoke mercy this is my pledge take my arm take a leap of faith stay your wont of emptiness and insular climb from well […]

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Remember that walk down to the city from the resort on the back road to the club in Playa when the air held a combination of eucalyptus and rotting fruit?

When we came home I couldn’t place it. It found me at the office, followed me sometimes in ceremonies and circumstances where tropical heat and a bass beat should not be interfering with the business of earning a living.

After vacation, my colleague walks by leaving a lingering fragrance. In an instant, a shot of dark streets and laughter swirls into my face as her body passes mine. There’s the leather of the eight chairs pushed close to the polished wood of the conference room table. There’s fluorescent light and the sound of paperwork and progress.

Yet her presence brings sharp awareness of wet sidewalks, the dip and weave of couples shuffling shoulder to shoulder to take over the dance floor, bodies shiny with exertion, their persons brushing each other, at hip, and hand and mouth.

I rest my pen on the page, lift it, set it, lift the tip to hold my confusion in the this sliver of space between the nib and the connection to the whitespace, searching for the reason I’m filling with nightclub energy when I am positioned to be serious and savvy and settled.

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In your head, there’s a place that holds the scent memories of places, persons, fears. Steel yourself for the ones that carry your regrets and seek your truest self in all the rest.

Like this:

There’s the box and there’s the way mom makes them. It’s not complicated.

There’s pour into a bowl and carry over to the faucet for some water and there’s measure, and add, and whip and fold. Okay, there’s a way to do things; it’s a little complicated.

There’s the add egg, add oil choice and there’s farm fresh, pulled- with a nervous giggle and the smell of muddy straw and musty and crusted roosts- from under the laying hens at Collette and Andy’s. The warmth and kindness of neighbors is not complicated.

There’s a bowl and a spoon and then there’s three bowls, the beaters and the coconut oil. Yes there’s some mess in the making, but it’s the care-taking, solid, simple, never wavering constant of tackling the complicated. It’s the request from the little boy who misses his mom after a week in the Northwoods with his Grandparents,”I just want your waffles, Mom.”

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There’s living in the box. And there’s the stepping out of it. It’s crazy complicated. But. It’s delicious.